Hear from three of the top web comic creators and how they make money from their own creations. Jason Brubaker, Jorge Cham, and Ethan Nicolle appear at Gallery Nucleus on Saturday March 1st for an afternoon workshop which will then be followed by a Q&A and signing.

Jason Brubaker works at Dreamworks Animation in Visual Development. At night, he puts on his cape and doubles as an independent graphic novelist and self-publisher. Jason has worked on Kung-Fu Panda 2, Ghost Rider, Van Helsing, Blade II, Leap of Faith, Roswell, Pitch Black, Blade and more as a visual development and storyboard artist. Jason has self-published two of his own graphic novels based on his story Remind. He’s raised over $125,000 through Kickstarter to self-publish Remind in two volumes. Jason continues to create new stories and just put out a book called Unnatural Talents which is about self publishing your own graphic novel.

Jorge Cham is the creator of “Piled Higher and Deeper (PhD),” the comic strip about life (or the lack thereof) in Academia. Often called “the Dilbert of Academia,” PHD has appeared in the Stanford, MIT, Caltech and Carnegie Mellon newspapers, among others, and is published online where it receives over nine million page views a month from over 1000 universities and colleges worldwide. He obtained his B.S. from Georgia Tech and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University, specializing in Robotics. He was sub-sequently,an Instructor and Research Associate at Caltech from 2003-2005, where his work focused on developing “Smart” Neural Implants. He travels and presents all over the world to thousands of graduate students, faculty and administrators on the graduate student experience. Four PHD book collections have been published with over 55,000 copies sold. He has over 200,000 fans on Facebook!

Ethan Nicolle is an American comic book creator, artist, and writer. He created the Slave Labor Graphics comic Chumble Spuzz which has been released as two graphic novels. He also worked with his younger brother, Malachai, to create Axe Cop, the web comic phenomena that has nearly 35,000 fans on Facebook and an animated show on Fox’s Television’s ADHD. Ethan has also created another popular webcomic called Bearmageddon that is about an end of the world apocalypse story with mutant bears, He also have had various pitches optioned by Cartoon Network, and works on the Axe Cop TV show at FOX and is currently writing for DreamWorks Animation on the new Veggie Tales series.

Collector’s Paradise Comics & Gallery, is proud to announce that we will, once again, be bringing Free Comic Book MAY to Los Angeles area this year, in celebration of the National Free Comic Book Day!

“Last year’s Free Comic Book May was an exhilarating event.” said owner Edward Greenberg, adding: ” We learned so much about how to do this, and will use the lessons this year to provide an even better experience for our patrons.”

The concept of Free Comic Book MAY is simple. Come to one (or both) Collector’s Paradise stores on Free Comic Book Day, May 4th, get your free books, and receive a Free Stamp Card. Come back the following Saturday, and get a stamp, and get more free books (details below). As long as you continue to attend and receive stamps, you can keep coming back every Saturday in May and get more free books, including, during the last week of the month, FREE Graphic Novels. The four weeks are designed to spotlight different types of books:

– May 4th – Free Comic Book Day, books provided by many publishers, range of options. PLUS: BUY 3 GET 1 FREE on anything in the store.

– May 11th – Free Superhero Comic Day, free superhero comics by major publishers. PLUS: 50% OFF All single issue Comics on the Shelves.

Rick Basaldua – a fantastic inker on many projects from Top Cow (Artifacts, Magdalena, Darkness), as well as Marc Silvestri’s run on HULK.

Troy Peteri – an accomplished leterrer, working with J. Michael Straczynski on TEN GRAND, as well as past projects, plus many titles in the Top Cow library of books.

Pasadena Store: 2-5 pmWhilce Portacio – Legendary comic creator, co-founder of Image Comics, co-creator and artist on the hot new Image Comics series, Non-Humans, with Glen Brunswick, as well as creator of Wetworks, and artist on Uncanny X-Men, Hulk, Iron Men and much more.

Glen Brunswick – co-creator and writer of Non-Humans, as well as many other fantastic books for Image Comics, including Gray Area (with John Romita Jr), Jersey Gods, and Killing Girl.

Mike Kunkel – an incredible Animator, and creator/writer/artist on the Classic comic book series, Herobear & The Kid, which comes back on Free Comic Book Day via Boom! Studios, as well as the artist on DC’s Billy Batson & The Magic of Shazam.

Chris Moreno – Creator / Artist on Zombie Dickheads, as well as the artist on Image Comics’ and more recently Kickstarter-resurrected Sidekick, as well as Disney’s Toy Story and more.

Saturday May 11th, Free Superhero Comic Book Day
San Fernando Valley Store

A WAKE FOR I, VAMPIRE, 7-10 pmJoshua Fialkov & Friends – we say goodbye to a critically acclaimed and loved by fans series with a party featuring thematically named alcohol drinks for anyone over 21, a Eulogy contest, as well as many other highly inappropriate hijinx, more details to be announced soon on our website and Facebook/Twitter feeds.

Pasadena Store, 12-3 pm:
Mark Sable – Creator/ writer of Graveyard of Empires, as well as Grounded, Hazed and many others.

Collector’s Paradise Canoga Park is located at 7131 Winnetka Ave, at Sherman Way in Canoga Park. Collector’s Paradise Pasadena is located at 319 S. Arroyo Parkway Unit 4, at the corner of Del Mar in Pasadena.